Wednesday, 19 October 2011

Annick Drosdal-Levillain, Associate Professor, University of Strasbourg was a visitor to the recent Lowry Lounge in Liverpool. Amongst her contributions to the Lounge was the announcement of a Lowry event in France next year as follows:

This conference aims to gather academics, writers, artists and translators interested in the work of Malcolm Lowry, both in itself and in relation to our contemporary global civilisation: the aim will also be to try to see how and why it continues to speak to the Twenty First century.

The posterity of Lowry’s work does not limit itself to the great lyrical tragedy of our modernity published in his lifetime, Under the Volcano (1947). A large amount of materials (novels, poems, short stories, essays) has been brought to public knowledge by specialists since Lowry’s death, and it appears that the tonality is far from being one-sided. No doubt, Lowry is one of those writers who take us beyond the pleasure principle, who detected in modern civilisation a passion for the real beyond the veil of reality, where joy and horror mingle on the path toward destruction. But his “drunken Divine Comedy”, the equivalent of Joyce’s work in progress, is also an appeal to the joy of bare life. It is an attempt to reintroduce the dimension of desire, of the sacred, foregrounding the living pulse of the body bound to the natural world, and to the “faunetic” substance of language.

Malcolm Lowry’s interest in painting and music, in the emerging art-forms of his time like the cinema and jazz music will also provide openings on other cultural fields.

Given the specific context provided by the Centre Culturel International de Cerisy-la-Salle in Normandy, the conference will be held mostly in French and partly in English, in the form of papers, round tables and readings.

Papers on the following subjects will be more particularly welcome:

- The sacred body and the natural world- The death-drive and the life-drive- Lowry and modern melancholy- Tragedy and beyond the tragedy- Poetics and politics- Love objects, objects of hatred- Lowry as poet of the real- Illuminations- The voice of Malcolm Lowry

Paper proposals should be sent not after November 15th at the following address:josiane.paccaud-huguet@univ-lyon2.fr

About Me

Welcome to Malcolm Lowry @ The 19th Hole

I set this blog up to mark the centenary of Malcolm Lowry's birth in July 2009.

I want to use the blog to publish my on-going research into Lowry's Wirral and to document my psychogeographical wanderings around Wirral and Liverpool in search of Lowry's spirit.

I will also use the blog to document the various themes that run through Lowry's work such as his love of cinema and jazz which I share with him.

Draw up a stool and join Malc and me at the bar in the clubhouse and enjoy the night!

Colin Dilnot

colin.dilnot@gmail.com

The photograph shows the original Caldy Golf Clubhouse, Wirral (not actually the 19th hole because the course was only 9 holes when first developed!) circa 1910.

You can see Caldy in the background which was just being developed by David Benno Rappart.

The clubhouse would have looked like this when Malcolm Lowry as a youth used the course which was near to his home at Inglewood in Caldy.

The clubhouse was located to the west of the Hooton to West Kirby Railway line near a bridge crossing what is now Shore Road. The building still stands and has been converted to residential accommodation though the landscape has changed considerably in a 100 years.

I will be sharing more information and photographs detailing Lowry's Wirral both on the blog.

An essay detailing some of my research is now published in a book called Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the world.

I am currently working on a bigger project entitled 'Gutted Arcades of the Past' detailing Lowry's early life and works.

Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World Biggs, Bryan & Tookey, Helen (eds)

Malcolm Lowry described Liverpool as ‘that terrible city whose main street is the ocean’. Born on the Wirral side of the river Mersey, Lowry’s relationship to the Merseyside of his youth informs all of his writing and Liverpool itself continued to hold tremendous significance for him, even though he never returned. Published in conjunction with a festival and exhibition at Liverpool’s Bluecoat arts centre celebrating Lowry’s centenary, this beautifully produced book showcases a variety of creative and critical approaches to Lowry and his work, and includes twelve specially commissioned pieces of new writing. There is a particular focus on place and on journeys; contributors write from the UK, Europe, Canada and Mexico, and reflect both on Lowry’s ‘voyage that never ends’ and on their own journeys with and through Lowry’s work. The book also demonstrates the richness of Lowry’s influence on contemporary visual artists and includes full-colour illustrations throughout. It will be an indispensable companion for anyone interested in the creative legacy of Malcolm Lowry’s life and work.